


Worst Romance Ever

by aeducanka



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, F/M, Gen, Parody, Sexism, Swearing, Threats of Violence, dunking on myself my OC and some gamers, mildly unrealistic video game mechanics, sex mention, tagged M just to be safe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25619422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeducanka/pseuds/aeducanka
Summary: Listen, it's not even that the chick's totally uptight, annoying and, with how easy it's easy to screw up and lose her approval, plainly not worth the effort. It's just this one romance that is so annoying and redundant that it shouldn't exist in the game AT ALL.Dragon Age: Origins gets a remake and a new (dwarven!) romance route is added. Not everyone is happy.
Relationships: Warden Aeducan & OC, implied Warden Aeducan/Warden Cousland
Comments: 8
Kudos: 4





	Worst Romance Ever

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [@twinkocs' post on Tumblr](https://twinkocs.tumblr.com/post/170887934976/important-question-if-all-of-my-ocs-were-in-a) "if all of my OCs were in a dating sim who’s route would u pick" and fueled by a whim to challenge myself and write something very outside of my comfort zone.
> 
> Choose "Show Creator's Style" for the optimal reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter can be read as a standalone fic. All the major warnings apply only to this part.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** this is not a Reddit AU. Just a regular DA forum with a more simplified design.

Posted by **████████** ^ 2 months ago

Emerald Aeducan - the worst DA:O romance! 

Emerald Aeducan: -12/10. WORST ROMANCE EVER.

Listen, it's not even that the chick's totally uptight, annoying and, with how easy it's easy to screw up and lose her approval, plainly not worth the effort. These things alone... I could let them slide, tbh. It's just this one romance that is so annoying and redundant that it shouldn't exist in the game AT ALL. If you are a completionist, you'd be better off romancing ANORA. Yeah, even Anora's arranged marriage subplot got more romance in it than a supposedly "fully-fledged" romance with Emerald Aeducan. It's THAT bad.

But first things first: this chick's nigh impossible to win. Perfect dialogue options, perfect choices, PERFECT EVERYTHING. One misshap and you have to reload your save because she won't let it slide. A friend had to reload SIX HOURS OF GAMEPLAY because he didn't realize he'd got sneakily locked out of her romance route between the saves. (Six hours of gameplay lost. On the gameplay to romance her SPECIFICALLY. Honestly if he weren't a completionist, he wouldn't have bothered.) You can't play this sorry excuse of a romance without a guide at hand AT ALL TIMES.

And once, AFTER HOURS OF PRESENTS, COMPLIMENTS, COURTLY FLIRTING ETC., you FINALLY get to confess to her, she... rejects you! Complicated feelings, difficult time to pursue a romance, the whole spiel about figuring things out... which wouldn't be half bad if she weren't spending THE WHOLE GAME figuring things out! Yeah, because apparently when you pick the only romance-triggering dialogue option, "I'll wait for you", you essentially mean a white marriage! Ever since if you try to flirt with Morrigan, Leliana etc., she'll confront you about it and break your "romance". She even approves of you using a persuasion option on Isabela ("Are there no other ways for us to get to know each other?") but will reject the suggestion of a threesome and if you insist on sleeping with Isabela, she'll break up with you, too. Hell, if you tease Bella the tavern wench into giving you a kiss, she'll confront you in pretty much the same way. Bella! One that TO THIS DAY doesn't trigger response in any other LI in the game! Huh, for a gal who is still "considering her options", Emerald sure is a jealous woman. :)

The fun part about Emerald's romance? Emerald's aforementioned hyper-jealousy aside, it doesn't feel like a romance at all. There's no kissing, no hand holding, no NOTHING. If you haven't played the game before, you wouldn't even notice which scenes were added in this route because they're all so. damn. platonic. We get it, your whole family is shit, you're devastated, well, grow up! The entirety of Orzammar is shit, you're nothing special! Honestly, even that ambassador romance in DA:I had more ~romantic undertones~ than this crap. Here you just get Emerald Aeducan crying on your shoulder. You think that's bad? Well, it's only going to get better!

Her first love confession you get IN THE DEEP ROADS, sometime before the final battle for the Anvil of the Void. I'm writing "before" even though the order is optional because if you side with Branka before heading to Aeducan's Taig, this particular conversation will NOT trigger and Emerald will break up with you instead. Anyway, the first trip to Aeducan Taig, the gal goes all misty-eyed and angrily determined. She finally tells you that she made up her mind and that she reciprocates your feelings. (Good job, sweetie, it's been only 3/4th of the fucking game.) Then she suggests that you two should sleep together right here, right now. In her ancestors' taig. Well, not really my thing, what with darkspawn and all, but even I have to admit this shit slaps. Aeducan-Aefuckan, amirite?

Except no, not at all, because for your relationship to continue, I kid you not, you have to turn her down. If you accept her offer, the game cuts to a steamy scene but Emerald, ever a capricious bitch, breaks up with you the next time you click on her. Depending on the choices you make (side with Cairidin, reject Emerald's offer, Harrowmont vs Bhelen surprisingly irrelevant, act bitchy towards Eamon, vote for anyone except for **unhardened** Alistair, preferably Anora or Anora & hardened Alistair's union), you get to sleep with her a few times in Eamon's Denerim Estate, but the looped sex scene is different.

(Yes, they've gone to the lengths of making an entirely new, significantly less steamy, sex scene as an additional fuck you towards the players.)[1]

The cherry on the top? The ending. If you accept Morrigan's Dark Ritual... no, you didn't guess! Emerald acts all grumpy for a bit but she doesn't break up with you! No, if you accept Morrigan's Dark Ritual (and if you picked Harrowmont, Emerald's canon worldstate, I hear), you can encourage Emerald to pursue a career in politics and she actually follows your advice after Harrowmont's untimely death (yeah, all the hours spent in Orzammar and if you picked Harrowmont, his rule doesn't last to the game's fucking EPILOGUE SLIDES, a way to endear me to Murder Aeducan for sure). Depending on the dialogue options, Emerald either breaks up with you here and then, becoming the Queen of Orzammar or (in the infamous "I'll wait for you" reuse - never seen anyone use that option, by the way) there's a 20+ years later epilogue slide about her abdicating for her son and reuniting with her true love above the surface... no, thanks.

By the end of the game I was so tired of this bitch, my Warden tried to go with the ultimate sacrifice. I say "tried" because, of course, the damn Aeducan just *HAD* to intervene. The good part is that if you try to go with the ultimate sacrifice, Emerald automatically sacrifices herself for you... which would be a fair trade for this terrible route in the rare case you didn't have the guts to sleep with Morrigan (yeah, I also thought that the Dark Ritual option would cut my Emerald route short, that was my reason) - you get to live and Emerald dies in one fell swoop, except... Emerald, being an annoying bitch she is, basically sabotages your suicide attempt and even posthumously hogs all your glory! Talk about annoying. I swear I've never felt more kinship with Bhelen Aeducan than I've felt while playing this route. I would gladly kill this bitch myself.

 **tl;dr: Don't play this route, it's garbage, don't recruit this bitch, save yourself the stress and always crown Bhelen Aeducan.**

 **Edit (10.06.2020):** I've just read that originally Emerald Aeducan was intended to be Anora's LI (if the player romances neither of them and Harrowmont restores Emerald to her noble status, there was meant to be a small mention of the two flirting in Denerim) and... honestly... it explains so much. Anyway, stay away from this trash.

**137 Comments**

SORT BY **OLD**

**atomic_adagio** ^ 2 months ago

I almost played it, thought I'll give it a chance... Thanks for the heads up!

* * *

**Tahini** ^ 2 months ago

The worst romance route, tbh.

* * *

**pulsarbravehearthalo** ^ 2 months ago

op you meant the worst route in bioware games period

* * *

**actuallystove_** ^ 2 months ago

The dwarves always get the short end of the stick, huh?

* * *

**lilybeadwood** ^ 2 months ago

 **@actuallystove_** , ur right!! the Deep Roads suck and now for the first dwarven romance they give us that?! give us the Varric romance, you cowards!!

* * *

**lordherbert89** ^ 2 months ago

 **@████████** , did you suspect how bad this route would turn out to be? I know that if you leave Alistair unhardened and neither him, nor Emerald are romanced, they end up together. Honestly, I think that it fits the narrative much better than leaving Emerald romanceable to the player.

* * *

**████████** ^ 2 months ago

 **@lordherbert89** , yes, the actual playable romance is much worse. I feel for Alistair, hardened or not.

* * *

**Samuraider** ^ 2 months ago

Right?! Personally, I also hated that new elf girl, Shianni's cousin. Blatant SJW propaganda.[2]

* * *

**NuttyFortune** ^ 2 months ago

couldve made anyone romancable and they chose her smh. would prefer that shy apprentice npc from mage orgin. at least she cute.[3]

* * *

**Vertighost** ^ 2 months ago

I remind you to stick to the topic. For talks about Kallista Tabris and Serena Amell check _"Kallista Tabris - romance route"_ , _"Kallista Tabris - what do you think?"_ and _"Which DA:O character should've been a romanceable option?"_. From now on any off-topic comments will be banned.

* * *

**BANDITTO** ^ 2 months ago

This whole remake was a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 I would say that they just cut and slightly rearranged the preexisting scene but I may be wrong. I always skip these scenes. :P [return to text]
> 
> 2 A blink-and-you-miss-it reference to Kallista Tabris, my other OC, who in this AU is Adaia's other child and another potential romance option/companion. [return to text]
> 
> 3 A blink-and-you-miss-it reference to Serena Amell, my other OC, who in this AU is just a minor NPC. Not that it would stop people from thirsting over her 16-year-old cute self. [return to text]
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please, tell me how much whiplash you felt in the comments! <3

**Author's Note:**

> All nicknames were generated **randomly** using [FantasyNameGenerators](https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/username-generator.php), [Nordpass](https://nordpass.com/username-generator/), [Jimpix](https://jimpix.co.uk/words/random-username-generator.asp#results) and [Perchance](https://perchance.org/aesthetic-username-generator).
> 
> This is my first attempt at coding in CSS and it wouldn't be possible if not for the amazing tutorials, ["How to Mimic Letters, Fliers, and Stationery Without Using Images"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11549178/chapters/25935135), ["Repository: Twitter"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517134/chapters/53806336#workskin) and ["How to Make Linked Footnotes on AO3"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4579026/chapters/10429149?style=creator), and for Caro Emerald whose music kept me sane.
> 
> As you may see, I didn't intend for this to be the first work for Emerald Aeducan. I'm well aware that I'm throwing references to her personal canon (not known to anyone besides me and maybe this one other person) right and left. I can only hope that it doesn't make the fic too confusing. Feel free to ask in the comments, if something's nagging you.
> 
> (Just don't ask if there'll be a continuation, please.)
> 
> This fic wouldn't see the light of the day without the support of my friends, Ania, Ola, Sierra, Loes and Dani who cheered on me, not knowing how vile this fic will turn out to be. Don't blame them, it's all on me, but they did wonders to my motivation and I'm genuinely indebted. Thank you so much. <3
> 
> And to anyone reading this: ~~I swear, this work doesn't reflect who I AM as a person and what I normally write is very, _very_ different.~~ Thanks for reading. I hope that you liked the coding!


End file.
